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Posted

I usually don't have any interest in film festivals, but somehow I got on the Chicago gay film festival (called Reelings) mailing list...and for whatever reason hopped in to read the titles.

One of them was called Sebastian and is the story of an escort in London.

Having been an escort back in the 90s, I was curious and went...and it was superb.  Beautiful lead actor, good plot line, and very true to life.  Just enough nakedness to keep it spicy.  I had several moments where I found myself holding my breath, as I had literally had the same experiences and kept having flashbacks to my early 20s.  It portrays escorting without any sort of shame...just very true to life.  

The fellow is writing a book about escorting, whilst escorting....I keep thinking about pulling out my day planners from 1998 to 2002 and turning it into some short stories or something.

SEBASTIAN TRAILER

Posted
1 hour ago, haring222 said:

I usually don't have any interest in film festivals, but somehow I got on the Chicago gay film festival (called Reelings) mailing list...and for whatever reason hopped in to read the titles.

One of them was called Sebastian and is the story of an escort in London.

Having been an escort back in the 90s, I was curious and went...and it was superb.  Beautiful lead actor, good plot line, and very true to life.  Just enough nakedness to keep it spicy.  I had several moments where I found myself holding my breath, as I had literally had the same experiences and kept having flashbacks to my early 20s.  It portrays escorting without any sort of shame...just very true to life.  

The fellow is writing a book about escorting, whilst escorting....I keep thinking about pulling out my day planners from 1998 to 2002 and turning it into some short stories or something.

SEBASTIAN TRAILER

What did you do after retiring from escorting?

Posted
3 hours ago, haring222 said:

I usually don't have any interest in film festivals, but somehow I got on the Chicago gay film festival (called Reelings) mailing list...and for whatever reason hopped in to read the titles.

One of them was called Sebastian and is the story of an escort in London.

Having been an escort back in the 90s, I was curious and went...and it was superb.  Beautiful lead actor, good plot line, and very true to life.  Just enough nakedness to keep it spicy.  I had several moments where I found myself holding my breath, as I had literally had the same experiences and kept having flashbacks to my early 20s.  It portrays escorting without any sort of shame...just very true to life.  

The fellow is writing a book about escorting, whilst escorting....I keep thinking about pulling out my day planners from 1998 to 2002 and turning it into some short stories or something.

SEBASTIAN TRAILER

Look like a compelling story - can't wait to watch it on a streaming service once released.

Posted
16 hours ago, SoCalBaseball said:

What did you do after retiring from escorting?

I escorted during college; I always planned on being done with it after I got my first professional job.  Unfortunately, once I got used to the relatively easy tax free income it made it really hard for me to focus on a more typical job that paid like 1/3 as much.  But I ended up having a client that I saw often have a heart attack when I was with him.  It was a pretty good indication that I needed to move forward with life.

I had started sort of casually escorting the summer after my senior year of high school (when my parents sent me to Europe for a few months, but I managed to quickly blow through the money that had sent me with) and hopped onto the rentboy website in 1998.

If I had to do it over again, I would have really run things much more professionally and kept at a few years more. I should have found someone to help with the scheduling side of things.

Ironically, escorting managed to break up a relationship I was in 10 years after I had called it quits.  I dated a fellow for years and we finally got to the moving in stage...and he found my box of frozen peas in the freezer that was still stuffed with 30k in cash I was trying to figure out how to turn into a downpayment for a mortgage.  He knew I had escorted but something about seeing the cash made him completely freak out.

Posted
40 minutes ago, haring222 said:

I escorted during college; I always planned on being done with it after I got my first professional job.  Unfortunately, once I got used to the relatively easy tax free income it made it really hard for me to focus on a more typical job that paid like 1/3 as much.  But I ended up having a client that I saw often have a heart attack when I was with him.  It was a pretty good indication that I needed to move forward with life.

I had started sort of casually escorting the summer after my senior year of high school (when my parents sent me to Europe for a few months, but I managed to quickly blow through the money that had sent me with) and hopped onto the rentboy website in 1998.

If I had to do it over again, I would have really run things much more professionally and kept at a few years more. I should have found someone to help with the scheduling side of things.

Ironically, escorting managed to break up a relationship I was in 10 years after I had called it quits.  I dated a fellow for years and we finally got to the moving in stage...and he found my box of frozen peas in the freezer that was still stuffed with 30k in cash I was trying to figure out how to turn into a downpayment for a mortgage.  He knew I had escorted but something about seeing the cash made him completely freak out.

Thank you for sharing your story and the movie trailer. I hope I realize when it comes to my city.

Posted
3 hours ago, haring222 said:

I escorted during college; I always planned on being done with it after I got my first professional job.  Unfortunately, once I got used to the relatively easy tax free income it made it really hard for me to focus on a more typical job that paid like 1/3 as much.  But I ended up having a client that I saw often have a heart attack when I was with him.  It was a pretty good indication that I needed to move forward with life.

I had started sort of casually escorting the summer after my senior year of high school (when my parents sent me to Europe for a few months, but I managed to quickly blow through the money that had sent me with) and hopped onto the rentboy website in 1998.

If I had to do it over again, I would have really run things much more professionally and kept at a few years more. I should have found someone to help with the scheduling side of things.

Ironically, escorting managed to break up a relationship I was in 10 years after I had called it quits.  I dated a fellow for years and we finally got to the moving in stage...and he found my box of frozen peas in the freezer that was still stuffed with 30k in cash I was trying to figure out how to turn into a downpayment for a mortgage.  He knew I had escorted but something about seeing the cash made him completely freak out.

Cash in a frozen pea box 😂. You must have some stories to tell

Posted
14 hours ago, NJF said:

Cash in a frozen pea box 😂. You must have some stories to tell

Everyone has their own set of challenges, but back in the 90s meth was just starting to become a thing but people did not understand how much it just wrecked your life; most of the Chicago guys who were escorting were either really doing it to survive, or the ones that were doing it more as a lifestyle basically reinvested it into terrible clothes from YMLA and drugs.  One very popular escort that I was friends with probably easily made 8-10k a month but routinely called me every month on the 4th to loan him rent money because he was running short.  Indeed, I still think he owes me that last $500 but I am guessing he is dead by now.

I was always lucky to have parents who paid my tuition and rent, and had zero interest in the club drug scene....so I could be a lot more conservative with my spending and always stuck the surplus in the pea box.  After I stopped, it helped to subsidize at least 10 years of my life, though I never did figure out how to turn a pile of cash into a mortgage downpayment.

I actually still have the pea box in the freezer, though now it holds my more legitimate stash of cash and my passport.  It's looking a little battered.

Posted

You sound sensible. If you’re able to do sex work and stay sane and clean of drugs etc it can set you up nicely. The trouble is it’s very difficult to keep grounded, especially if you’re young. 

I started at a more mature age, which has helped me keep things in perspective. The work can be exciting, well rewarded and it gives you a lot of flexibility, but there’s a dark side unless you’re careful. Had I found sex work at 19 I’m sure it would have eaten me up. 

A friend who started it around the same time as me found the dark side and it nearly got him. He’s younger than me and threw himself into the work, encouraged by the attention he got. He was fit, sexy etc and flew very close to the sun. He got involved with the wrong people and ended up on meth. His looks went, so did most of his money.

He managed to hide what was happening to him for a long time but eventually it was unavoidable and he sought help. He gave me all his cash (not in a pea box unfortunately) to look after while he got himself back clean. Now he’s back to his former self but no longer escorts… just a bit of porn filming. 


 

 

Posted
23 hours ago, Jamie21 said:

You sound sensible. If you’re able to do sex work and stay sane and clean of drugs etc it can set you up nicely. The trouble is it’s very difficult to keep grounded, especially if you’re young. 

I started at a more mature age, which has helped me keep things in perspective. The work can be exciting, well rewarded and it gives you a lot of flexibility, but there’s a dark side unless you’re careful. Had I found sex work at 19 I’m sure it would have eaten me up. 

A friend who started it around the same time as me found the dark side and it nearly got him. He’s younger than me and threw himself into the work, encouraged by the attention he got. He was fit, sexy etc and flew very close to the sun. He got involved with the wrong people and ended up on meth. His looks went, so did most of his money.

He managed to hide what was happening to him for a long time but eventually it was unavoidable and he sought help. He gave me all his cash (not in a pea box unfortunately) to look after while he got himself back clean. Now he’s back to his former self but no longer escorts… just a bit of porn filming. 


 

 

Very tragic. I am so happy he set himself straight. 

Posted
On 9/23/2024 at 3:49 PM, haring222 said:

I usually don't have any interest in film festivals, but somehow I got on the Chicago gay film festival (called Reelings) mailing list...and for whatever reason hopped in to read the titles.

One of them was called Sebastian and is the story of an escort in London.

Having been an escort back in the 90s, I was curious and went...and it was superb.  Beautiful lead actor, good plot line, and very true to life.  Just enough nakedness to keep it spicy.  I had several moments where I found myself holding my breath, as I had literally had the same experiences and kept having flashbacks to my early 20s.  It portrays escorting without any sort of shame...just very true to life.  

The fellow is writing a book about escorting, whilst escorting....I keep thinking about pulling out my day planners from 1998 to 2002 and turning it into some short stories or something.

SEBASTIAN TRAILER

I saw it last night at Cinema Diverse at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. I agree it is superb. The character development was amazing. I loved the  ending dialogue: “ You can ask me anything.“

Posted
On 9/25/2024 at 12:07 PM, Jamie21 said:

You sound sensible. If you’re able to do sex work and stay sane and clean of drugs etc it can set you up nicely. The trouble is it’s very difficult to keep grounded, especially if you’re young. 

I started at a more mature age, which has helped me keep things in perspective. The work can be exciting, well rewarded and it gives you a lot of flexibility, but there’s a dark side unless you’re careful. Had I found sex work at 19 I’m sure it would have eaten me up. 

A friend who started it around the same time as me found the dark side and it nearly got him. He’s younger than me and threw himself into the work, encouraged by the attention he got. He was fit, sexy etc and flew very close to the sun. He got involved with the wrong people and ended up on meth. His looks went, so did most of his money.

He managed to hide what was happening to him for a long time but eventually it was unavoidable and he sought help. He gave me all his cash (not in a pea box unfortunately) to look after while he got himself back clean. Now he’s back to his former self but no longer escorts… just a bit of porn filming. 


 

 

I actually sort of started it while still in high school.  I used to hang out at the little coffee shop called The Abbey and would sit there reading Ayn Rand novels.  One older fellow (who was probably the same age I am now) took a liking to me and kept buying me desserts.  I was above the age of consent, but I hope he thought I was a college student.  He managed to convince me to let him give me a blowjob and must have liked that experience, as he gave up the $5 desserts and offered me $200 bucks to go back to his place.  $200 bucks in the mid 90s to a Capitalist teenager was a lot of money and I jumped at the offer.

Now that I think about it, it's very possible that that money is still in an envelope taped to the bottom of a dresser drawer in my mum's house...I remember looking at the $100 bills and not wanting to break them.

When rentboy was a thing they actually had something called rent university, which taught the younger escorts the finer points of the industry.  That was one of the things that made me so sad when the feds shut the website down...it was basically a publicity stunt and all it managed to do was take away a support network for a lot of guys. 

I attended a couple of their classes in NYC and the guy leading it had such good advice.  I remember him saying over and over that the 'only thing you should ever take from a client is a sealed bottle of water; you have no idea what is in anything else.  Later I had a client who offered me a drink and was just pretty much insisting that I let him bring me something; I asked for a coke, anticipating a can, and he came out with a glass of coke...something pinged in my brain from that class and I just thanked him and let it sit on the table.  He kept asking me why I wasn't drinking it and carried the dang glass with us when we went to his bedroom.  I don't know what (if anything) that fellow had put into that coke, but he was just not letting it go.  I excused myself to take a fast shower and carried it into the bathroom with me and dumped it out.

I feel like the younger generation of escorts don;t really have the close connections that were possible to make 25 years ago.

Posted
On 9/27/2024 at 10:43 AM, Rod Hagen said:

I see in the Trailer that Bret Easton Ellis liked it.  That's cool.  I hope I get to see it.  If anyone finds out where it eventually streams, please post the info here, thanks!!

You can find it on telegram. 

  • 2 months later...

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